“Toward a Gameic World argues that video games have the potential to work through and play out social anxieties and traumatic events in contemporary Japanese society. In contradistinction from extant studies of gaming in Japan that tend to be more historical, ethnographical, and sociological, the book takes on a multidisciplinary approach with an emphasis on ‘textual’ analysis of video games. While embedded in the context of modern Japan, the book reflects on the larger global implications of video games as a viable genre of scholarly inquiry.”—Leo T. S. Ching, Duke University